At the Digiday Retail Summit in February in Austin, Texas, we discussed with 53 retail leaders how their organizations are using online consumer data. Check out our earlier research on retail companies’ subscription services here. Learn more about our upcoming events here.

Quick takeaways:

Seventy-nine percent of companies surveyed by Digiday said they use online data to improve marketing campaigns.

The least popular use of online data was creating targeted in-store advertisements.

Only 25 percent of surveyed companies plan to work with others to create multibrand stores.

Marketers use online data in many ways
Retailers today have access to massive amounts of online data on consumers such as online purchase history, web browsing habits from cookies and location data from mobile traffic. As competition between companies increases, online consumer data can play a critical role in developing a competitive advantage. Seventy-nine percent of companies in Digiday’s survey said they use consumer data to enhance their marketing efforts, and 74 percent use it to improve brand visibility. Less than one-third of retailers said they use this data to create in-store advertisements.